All Dressed Up

Even though it’s starting to get a little colder (you have no idea how much it pains us to admit that!) we here at Two Saucy Sisters still believe that it is never too cold for a big ol’ salad!

That being said, there are definitely a lot of ways to change up a salad to make it more seasonable.  Adding cooked, cubed sweet potato or squash adds a nice Fall flair, as do some crisp apple slices.  Pair that with some toasty walnuts and creamy goat cheese and you’ve got yourself a pretty tasty fall-ified salad!

But of course, salad just isn’t salad without dressing, now is it?  You could just go with your usual oil-and-vinegar combo, but why not make it a little more special?

Something you may not know about us is that the house we live in (when we’re not at school) is actually a more than 100-year-old fruit farm.  Most of the orchards are gone now and we only have about 3 acres of the original land left, but we do have a few pear trees that still produce fruit every year.  So, you can imagine that when our gracious father picked us a whole bunch of them, we needed to figure out a way to use them up before they got too ripe.  Who knew the answer would be salad dressing?

Yup- we made a pear vinaigrette!  It’s a little sweet, it’s a little savoury, and it makes the perfect topping for a Fall-inspired salad!

This works really well if you just so happen to have a couple slightly over-ripe pears in your fridge.  If you don’t, just leave a pear out on the counter for a day or two and you’ll be ready to make this tasty dressing.  It’s simply a matter of throwing the ingredients in a blender and you’ve got yourself enough dressing for several salads in mere minutes!

So now you have no excuse not to eat your greens 😉

Happy Fall Salad-Eating!

Pear Vinaigrette

Prep time: 5 minutes
Makes: ~1 cup

Ingredients:

1 ripe pear
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp white vinegar
dash of salt
pepper, to taste
1/2 c. olive oil

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a blender except for the olive oil, and blend until the pear has been pulverized.   With the motor running, slowly add the olive oil in a steady stream.  Blend for another minute or two to ensure the pear is fully blended and everything is combined.  Adjust seasonings to taste.

Store in a sealed jar in the refrigerator. (Just be sure to set it on the counter a few minutes before using it, and give it a stir before pouring)

~twosaucysisters

Do you ever make fun salad dressings?  What’s your favourite way to jazz-up a salad?

Fall Cravings

During the summer and spring months, generally our cravings lean more towards the lighter and brighter side of things, for things like salads, burgers, and anything grilled. When September hits and the fall weather starts kicking in, however, we start moving towards warm soups, oatmeal, everything pumpkin and of course all of those lovely fall vegetables!

Butternut squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, asparagus and pears!

Ok so pears aren’t a vegetable, but they’re a fall fruit, and who’s counting anyways? We currently have a tonne of pears in our house right now, because not only are they way cheaper than apples (the poor apple crop!) but also, our Dad’s house in Grimsby used to be a fruit farm a long time ago, so we’ve still got a bunch of pear trees kicking around.  They’re actually amazing, we literally do nothing to them, and they grow beautiful, yummy tasting pears every year!

Anyways, all the time the other night we were craving roasted fall veggies, so we chopped all this stuff up and ended up with something that looked this:

Soooooo delicious! It was exactly what we were hoping it would be. And the best part is, is it was super easy! Literally you chop, toss, roast, eat. What’s better than that?

Throw in some onion and toss it all in a little olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary, and you are golden my friends! It’s the perfect fall dish. It takes about 45min to roast, but it’s well worth the wait, and during that time you can prepare the rest of your meal, do homework, do a mini at-home workout, clean your room…. the possibilities are endless!

Would’ya look at that steam! 🙂

We ate this as a main dish with some feta cheese crumbled on top and corn bread+almond butter on the side, but we both agreed that this would be fantastic as a side dish at your Thanksgiving turkey dinner, or just a regular meal at home!

Long story short: If you love fall, roasted vegetables, and happiness, you will love this dish!                                                                              🙂

Roasted Fall Veggie Salad

Prep time: 10min
Cook tmie: 45min
Serves: 2-4

Ingredients:

1-2 carrots
2-3 parsnips
1/4 of  a large butternut squash
1/2 a large sweet potato
1/2 a bunch of asparagus
1/4 large white onion
1 pear
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.

Chop all vegetables into bite-sized pieces.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle on the rosemary, salt and pepper. Toss until evenly coated.

Bake in the oven for 40-45min, or until a fork can be easy inserted (the carrots will remain firmer than the rest of the vegetables). Sprinkle with feta or other cheese, if desired, and enjoy!

-twosaucysisters

What dish do you crave the most when the fall weather comes around?

What I Ate Wednesday: Savoury Buckwheat bakes and a New Routine

We think that Fall is finally starting to move in.  In fact, yesterday was the first time that either of us had to wear a long-sleeve shirt on our run since the spring!  And to top it off, we got word from our brother that they closed our pool at home.  <sigh>, Good bye, summer!

But as sad as we are to say farewell to the warm temperatures and long sunny days, not everything about the coming of Fall is bad!  We actually have many things to be excited about for what we’ve both agreed is our second-favourite season. (Come winter, though, we’ll be singing a different tune!)

Fall is great for a number of reasons:

Cross Country season starts!

Pumpkins and Squash are suuuper cheap!

(source)

Being back in London

Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Latte!

And of course who doesn’t love the satisfying crunch of leaves under your feet?

And now that Fall is in the air, Jenn’s theme for What I Ate Wednesday this month just seems so appropriate!

Yes, this is also the time of year when many of us are heading back to school, or at least settling back into a more consistent routine, which makes it the perfect time to begin some good new habits!  Think of it as an early new-years resolution 🙂

For us, the start of school means a more regimented workout routine.  We have practice every day at 4:30, which we actually like because we no longer have to think about scheduling our workouts in- that part’s already done for us! 🙂

The big change we notice this time of year is meal patterns.  More specifically, planning and making meals has to be much more pre-planned.  This holds true particularly on Thursdays, when we have class from 11:30am-8:30pm with no breaks.  That means that we have to pack a lunch and a dinner that day, along with some snacks. (Luckily that is our day off from practice, so at least that’s one less thing to worry about!)

Our new routine is to prep our dinner on Wednesday night, and make our lunch Thursday morning. Yes, we could just buy our dinner on campus, but its so expensive, and usually not as healthy as what we could make at home (or as delicious 🙂 )

Dinner has to also be easily-pack-able and portable.  And delicious. Did we say that already?

Enter the savoury buckwheat bake.

This was our first time making a savoury variety of one of our favourite breakfasts, and the only thing we could think was “why haven’t we done this before!?!”

Pear and Cheddar buckwheat bake… the perfect comfort food right before you enter into your last three hours of class during the longest. Day. Ever.

With a little rosemary thrown in there, this little dinner cake hit the spot and kept us both going through that last night class.

Fruit and cheese.  The perfect combination!  We don’t really have much more to say about this little creation, other than that it was extremely delicious and, when paired with a little die salad, was filling enough to last us straight through our 3-hour night class.

So if you’re a buckwheat-bake lover like us, don’t hesitate to branch out and try one for dinner, we promise you wont be disappointed!

Pear and Cheddar Savoury Buckwheat Bake

Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 30 min
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1/2 c. buckwheat flour
2 tbsp buckwheat groats
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
4 tbsp milk
2/3 c. plain yogurt
1 pear, diced, leaving a few slices left over for topping
1/4 c. cubed cheddar cheese, plus extra for topping
1 1/2 – 2 tbsp. dried rosemary
1/4 tsp salt
pepper

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Combine all dry ingredients in one bowl and all wet in another. Mix thoroughly, stirring in the cheese, pear and rosemary. Pour into two greased bowls or ramekins, and top with pear slices and extra cheese.

Bake for 30-35min, or until done.

-twosaucysisters